Vinyltrichlorosilane is a useful product which has found its way into a wide field of applications. The esters produced therefrom for example are used for dressing of glass fibers or in the manufacture of cable sheath material.
Copending commonly owned U.S. patent application Ser. No. 642,250, filed Jan. 4, 1991, discloses the principles for the structural design of reactors for the industrial scale production of vinyltrichlorosilane from trichlorosilane and vinylchloride. By using reactors which were manufactured according to the technical data disclosed in said application, it was possible to achieve the reactor output capacities which were proportional to the size of the cross section of the annular reactor ring. Large size reactor units of this type in which the diameter of the outer reactor tube is 60 cm and the length is 250 cm, yield approximately 47 tons of the desired vinyltrichlorosilane per month when they are operated according to the method disclosed in said copending application. An increase in output capacity requires larger reactor diameters and larger reactor cross sections; however, this involves an increased amount of labor and cost.
The possible remedy for the manufacture of larger amounts of vinyltrichlorosilane by providing additional reactor units also has the disadvantage that it involves great expense.